Swimmers in a swimming pool or an open body of water often use the front crawl stroke, where in order to breathe, a swimmer must either lift his or her head or rotate it to one side, which also rotates and disrupts the body alignment. While diving snorkels have long been used to permit divers to breathe when near the surface of the water without lifting their heads from the water, snorkels have only recently been developed to allow swimmers to breathe while using the front crawl or other strokes without lifting or turning their heads.
The present inventor has disclosed and claimed a front-mounted snorkel in International application no. PCT/CA2006/02912, filed 24 Feb. 2006, and issued U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,965 issued May 23, 2006, which are incorporated herein by reference. A front-mounted swimmer's snorkel is also disclosed in U.S. Design Pat. No. Des 406,333 of Finis, Inc. It has a snorkel tube positioned in front of the user's forehead and secured by a head-brace, which extends above the water surface and has at its lower end a mouthpiece held in the user's mouth and a water purge valve. A problem with the Finis snorkel is that the head brace is at a fixed angle relative to the mouthpiece tube, so it does not accommodate swimmers with differently shaped foreheads.
There is a need therefore for a front-mounted swimming snorkel which adapts to different swimmers with varying head sizes and shapes.